This book addresses these questions through a collection of studies that relate to various theoretical frameworks, ranging from Conceptual Metaphor Theory to Words as Social Tools. Contributors investigate how abstract concepts are grounded in the mind, represented in language, and used in verbal discourse. This richness is matched by a range of methods used throughout the volume, from neuroimaging to computational modeling, and from behavioral experiments to corpus analyses.
This book addresses these questions through a collection of studies that relate to various theoretical frameworks, ranging from Conceptual Metaphor Theory to Words as Social Tools. Contributors investigate how abstract concepts are grounded in the mind, represented in language, and used in verbal discourse. This richness is matched by a range of methods used throughout the volume, from neuroimaging to computational modeling, and from behavioral experiments to corpus analyses.
Previous research has shown that modality-preferential sensorimotor areas are relevant for processing of words referring to concrete objects or actions. However, whether modality preferential areas also play a role for abstract words is still under debate. In this chapter we will argue that the apparent lack of empirical evidence for a grounding of abstract words stems, at least in part, from the treatment of abstract words as one monolithic semantic category, rather than taking into account specific abstract word types and sub-categories. We will review classical and recent empirical evidence from neuropsychological, neuroimaging and behavioral approaches and demonstrate the necessity of considering specific semantic meaning types when investigating a possible grounding of concrete and abstract concepts, for both theoretical and methodological reasons.
Embodied and grounded approaches to cognition have compellingly demonstrated that we comprehend concrete words simulating their meaning through our sensorimotor system (Barsalou 2008). Abstract words, i.e., words that do not have a single and concrete referent, are more difficult to account for in a grounded perspective. According to the Words As social Tools (WAT) proposal (Borghi and Binkofski 2014), in the acquisition and representation of abstract words language plays a central role. Abstract words are indeed mainly acquired through linguistic-social experience (Wauters et al. 2003). We report a behavioral experiment showing that the elaboration of abstract words involves the mouth motor system, as embodied counterpart of the activation of linguistic information, and that the involvement of the mouth is flexibly modulated by the task.
In this chapter, I discuss the neuroscientific evidence concerning the role of the visual cortex for inferential semantic processing of concrete vs. abstract words. Results of my review suggest that visual cortex activity not only systematically accompanies inferential processing of concrete words, but it is also an active (facilitating) component of it. This is consistent with the Simulation or Embodied accounts of lexical semantic competence, according to which language understanding in general just consists in imagery/simulation processes underpinned by dedicated areas of the brain (e.g., the visual cortex). However, I show that this is not the case for words referring to abstract concepts: inferential processing of abstract words does not seem to involve visual cortex. The theoretical consequences of this phenomenon are also discussed.
In this chapter I address the role of mental simulations for processing and representing abstract concepts, suggesting that abstract concepts are grounded in mimetic schemas: dynamic, concrete and preverbal representations that have been observed in early childhood development. The analysis is based on recordings of gesture and speech of a congenitally blind child gathered over the course of three years. The child displayed an early preference for using mimetic strategies to explain abstract concepts but drifted toward more language-centered strategies as she grew older. Through behavioral data collected in a case-study, I provide empirical evidence to support the hypothesis that embodied mental simulation play a crucial role in abstract concepts’ cognitive grounding.
An emerging class of theories of knowledge assumes that the representation and processing of concepts is achieved by reactivating multiple aspects of experience. Abstract concepts such as freedom and justice constitute a challenge for these theories because they have no clearly identifiable referent that we can experience. The Words As social Tools theory (WAT) posits that while both concrete and abstract concepts activate sensorimotor networks, the linguistic network is activated more by abstract than by concrete concepts given that the mode of acquisition of abstract concepts relies more on language. In this chapter we extend this argument and report results from an experiment with the Extrinsic Simon task suggesting that when we process abstract words we re-enact the experience of their acquisition and/or explain to ourselves their meaning.
The writing guideline to avoid abstractness and to use concrete language instead has a long and well-deserved reputation. Nevertheless, it is not clear what constitutes concrete language. In this chapter we report two studies. The first investigates the determinants of concreteness and abstractness using a rating task. The results show that for all word classes sensory perceptibility is an important component and that the determinants specificity and drawability/filmability vary with word class. In the second study, we used the insights from study 1 to manipulate a text from the National Budgeting Institute (Nibud) that addresses adolescents from different educational levels. The results only show effects of educational level on comprehension and persuasive power; no effects of concreteness were found. The studies raise issues about the validity of the writing guideline to be concrete.
This chapter explores the acceptability properties of copredication and how they can inform debates about the representation of abstract concepts. Across a series of acceptability judgment experiments, it was tested whether copredication in book-, lunch- and city-type nominals is difficult across-the-board or depends on adjective ordering in sentences like “John said that the folded and educational newspaper was on the shelf”. The results revealed no acceptability difference between copredication and non-copredication, however there was a strong preference for concrete adjectives to be placed before abstract ones. It is suggested for the first time that the parser is sensitive to semantic complexity, and that it is more optimal to access abstract concepts after associated concrete concepts than the reverse.
Concreteness has been defined as a semantic property related to physical perception. In this paper we tackle the concreteness issue from the viewpoint of countability by arguing that uncountable expressions (e.g., some cake), although concrete, are more abstract than countable ones (e.g., one cake) since the former entail the suppression of the reference to shape, which is a salient property in the representation of entities.
We report empirical data collected with preschool children in which we show that the uncountable reference is dispreferred. We discuss possible reasons for this phenomenon, which involve the roles played by shape and by language (and in particular grammar) in early perceptual processing, and we suggest how these factors may relate to our ability to abstract from perceptual experience.
Most German particle verbs (PVs) are composed of a prepositional particle (P) and a base verb (BV). For instance, anstrahlen is formed from the P an and the BV strahlen. The meaning of a PV results from often systematic interactions between the P and BV meanings. But many Ps and BVs are ambiguous and, moreover, a single P meaning and a single BV meaning can be combined in several ways. Finally, the interactions between P and BV meanings depend on the context.
This chapter presents a case study of how two particles, auf and ab, interact with certain BVs and contextual factors, while focusing on the difference between abstract and concrete BV/PV concepts, and between abstract and concrete contexts.
Embodiment plays an essential role in both concrete and abstract semantic representation. As a consequence, action verbs are extensively involved in the conceptualization and linguistic encoding of figurative meanings. In the light of several theoretical frameworks, this chapter aims to investigate the mechanisms that enable verbs to acquire new abstract meanings. The analysis we present focuses specifically on the metaphorical variation of a cohesive group of five Italian action verbs codifying a movement along the vertical axis (alzare, abbassare, salire, scendere, sollevare). The results confirm the Invariance Principle worked out by Lakoff: the metaphorical mapping of an action verb is strictly constrained by the image schemas involved in its core and concrete meaning.
For young children, grasping abstract concepts and words poses a challenge. This chapter reports a case-study in which I discuss the abstract concepts expressed by complex words (440 types) by a Swedish girl (1–3 years). The data show that complex adjectives expressing evaluative content emerged prior age 2. These types of adjectives might thus be one step towards the learning of abstract concepts. The child’s novel compounds, combining concepts on several variables, are proof of her ability to gradually abstract away from perception-based reality. They can therefore be another means in the process of building abstract representation. In conclusion, this study confirms a view of abstract representation being built up gradually by relying on multiple factors such as linguistic, experiential, and contextual information.
Science aims to understand the physical and living world around us. To do this, it requires us to develop abstract ways of thinking. The aim of this chapter is to describe and explain how the abstract concepts of heat energy and heat transfer emerge and evolve during two secondary (high) school science lessons, by providing an account of how they are linguistically represented in discourse using a cognitive discursive framework. The analysis of a teacher-led demonstration, a group writing task, and an interview, during which pupils externalize their mental images in speech, writing, and in visual representations, shows how the discourse as well as the social and concrete here-and-now physical contexts, affect the development of these abstract concepts.
This chapter’s objective is to elaborate the criteria for estimating the proportion of abstractness :: concreteness of the TIME concept. As a device, the time domain matrix profiles time’s ontological features such as its origin, type, qualities, antithesis, object of influence, measure unit, measuring device, and metaphoric correlates. The chapter finds that abstractness :: concreteness of the time domain matrix depends on the type of construal of the world in which it is schemed – scientific (philosophical) or poetic. An overall tendency towards increasing concreteness is identified. This research is based on a corpus of 15,000 collocations with the lexical unit time and its historical equivalents. These collocations are featured in British philosophical and poetic works from corresponding historical periods between the seventh and twentieth centuries.
This book addresses these questions through a collection of studies that relate to various theoretical frameworks, ranging from Conceptual Metaphor Theory to Words as Social Tools. Contributors investigate how abstract concepts are grounded in the mind, represented in language, and used in verbal discourse. This richness is matched by a range of methods used throughout the volume, from neuroimaging to computational modeling, and from behavioral experiments to corpus analyses.
Previous research has shown that modality-preferential sensorimotor areas are relevant for processing of words referring to concrete objects or actions. However, whether modality preferential areas also play a role for abstract words is still under debate. In this chapter we will argue that the apparent lack of empirical evidence for a grounding of abstract words stems, at least in part, from the treatment of abstract words as one monolithic semantic category, rather than taking into account specific abstract word types and sub-categories. We will review classical and recent empirical evidence from neuropsychological, neuroimaging and behavioral approaches and demonstrate the necessity of considering specific semantic meaning types when investigating a possible grounding of concrete and abstract concepts, for both theoretical and methodological reasons.
Embodied and grounded approaches to cognition have compellingly demonstrated that we comprehend concrete words simulating their meaning through our sensorimotor system (Barsalou 2008). Abstract words, i.e., words that do not have a single and concrete referent, are more difficult to account for in a grounded perspective. According to the Words As social Tools (WAT) proposal (Borghi and Binkofski 2014), in the acquisition and representation of abstract words language plays a central role. Abstract words are indeed mainly acquired through linguistic-social experience (Wauters et al. 2003). We report a behavioral experiment showing that the elaboration of abstract words involves the mouth motor system, as embodied counterpart of the activation of linguistic information, and that the involvement of the mouth is flexibly modulated by the task.
In this chapter, I discuss the neuroscientific evidence concerning the role of the visual cortex for inferential semantic processing of concrete vs. abstract words. Results of my review suggest that visual cortex activity not only systematically accompanies inferential processing of concrete words, but it is also an active (facilitating) component of it. This is consistent with the Simulation or Embodied accounts of lexical semantic competence, according to which language understanding in general just consists in imagery/simulation processes underpinned by dedicated areas of the brain (e.g., the visual cortex). However, I show that this is not the case for words referring to abstract concepts: inferential processing of abstract words does not seem to involve visual cortex. The theoretical consequences of this phenomenon are also discussed.
In this chapter I address the role of mental simulations for processing and representing abstract concepts, suggesting that abstract concepts are grounded in mimetic schemas: dynamic, concrete and preverbal representations that have been observed in early childhood development. The analysis is based on recordings of gesture and speech of a congenitally blind child gathered over the course of three years. The child displayed an early preference for using mimetic strategies to explain abstract concepts but drifted toward more language-centered strategies as she grew older. Through behavioral data collected in a case-study, I provide empirical evidence to support the hypothesis that embodied mental simulation play a crucial role in abstract concepts’ cognitive grounding.
An emerging class of theories of knowledge assumes that the representation and processing of concepts is achieved by reactivating multiple aspects of experience. Abstract concepts such as freedom and justice constitute a challenge for these theories because they have no clearly identifiable referent that we can experience. The Words As social Tools theory (WAT) posits that while both concrete and abstract concepts activate sensorimotor networks, the linguistic network is activated more by abstract than by concrete concepts given that the mode of acquisition of abstract concepts relies more on language. In this chapter we extend this argument and report results from an experiment with the Extrinsic Simon task suggesting that when we process abstract words we re-enact the experience of their acquisition and/or explain to ourselves their meaning.
The writing guideline to avoid abstractness and to use concrete language instead has a long and well-deserved reputation. Nevertheless, it is not clear what constitutes concrete language. In this chapter we report two studies. The first investigates the determinants of concreteness and abstractness using a rating task. The results show that for all word classes sensory perceptibility is an important component and that the determinants specificity and drawability/filmability vary with word class. In the second study, we used the insights from study 1 to manipulate a text from the National Budgeting Institute (Nibud) that addresses adolescents from different educational levels. The results only show effects of educational level on comprehension and persuasive power; no effects of concreteness were found. The studies raise issues about the validity of the writing guideline to be concrete.
This chapter explores the acceptability properties of copredication and how they can inform debates about the representation of abstract concepts. Across a series of acceptability judgment experiments, it was tested whether copredication in book-, lunch- and city-type nominals is difficult across-the-board or depends on adjective ordering in sentences like “John said that the folded and educational newspaper was on the shelf”. The results revealed no acceptability difference between copredication and non-copredication, however there was a strong preference for concrete adjectives to be placed before abstract ones. It is suggested for the first time that the parser is sensitive to semantic complexity, and that it is more optimal to access abstract concepts after associated concrete concepts than the reverse.
Concreteness has been defined as a semantic property related to physical perception. In this paper we tackle the concreteness issue from the viewpoint of countability by arguing that uncountable expressions (e.g., some cake), although concrete, are more abstract than countable ones (e.g., one cake) since the former entail the suppression of the reference to shape, which is a salient property in the representation of entities.
We report empirical data collected with preschool children in which we show that the uncountable reference is dispreferred. We discuss possible reasons for this phenomenon, which involve the roles played by shape and by language (and in particular grammar) in early perceptual processing, and we suggest how these factors may relate to our ability to abstract from perceptual experience.
Most German particle verbs (PVs) are composed of a prepositional particle (P) and a base verb (BV). For instance, anstrahlen is formed from the P an and the BV strahlen. The meaning of a PV results from often systematic interactions between the P and BV meanings. But many Ps and BVs are ambiguous and, moreover, a single P meaning and a single BV meaning can be combined in several ways. Finally, the interactions between P and BV meanings depend on the context.
This chapter presents a case study of how two particles, auf and ab, interact with certain BVs and contextual factors, while focusing on the difference between abstract and concrete BV/PV concepts, and between abstract and concrete contexts.
Embodiment plays an essential role in both concrete and abstract semantic representation. As a consequence, action verbs are extensively involved in the conceptualization and linguistic encoding of figurative meanings. In the light of several theoretical frameworks, this chapter aims to investigate the mechanisms that enable verbs to acquire new abstract meanings. The analysis we present focuses specifically on the metaphorical variation of a cohesive group of five Italian action verbs codifying a movement along the vertical axis (alzare, abbassare, salire, scendere, sollevare). The results confirm the Invariance Principle worked out by Lakoff: the metaphorical mapping of an action verb is strictly constrained by the image schemas involved in its core and concrete meaning.
For young children, grasping abstract concepts and words poses a challenge. This chapter reports a case-study in which I discuss the abstract concepts expressed by complex words (440 types) by a Swedish girl (1–3 years). The data show that complex adjectives expressing evaluative content emerged prior age 2. These types of adjectives might thus be one step towards the learning of abstract concepts. The child’s novel compounds, combining concepts on several variables, are proof of her ability to gradually abstract away from perception-based reality. They can therefore be another means in the process of building abstract representation. In conclusion, this study confirms a view of abstract representation being built up gradually by relying on multiple factors such as linguistic, experiential, and contextual information.
Science aims to understand the physical and living world around us. To do this, it requires us to develop abstract ways of thinking. The aim of this chapter is to describe and explain how the abstract concepts of heat energy and heat transfer emerge and evolve during two secondary (high) school science lessons, by providing an account of how they are linguistically represented in discourse using a cognitive discursive framework. The analysis of a teacher-led demonstration, a group writing task, and an interview, during which pupils externalize their mental images in speech, writing, and in visual representations, shows how the discourse as well as the social and concrete here-and-now physical contexts, affect the development of these abstract concepts.
This chapter’s objective is to elaborate the criteria for estimating the proportion of abstractness :: concreteness of the TIME concept. As a device, the time domain matrix profiles time’s ontological features such as its origin, type, qualities, antithesis, object of influence, measure unit, measuring device, and metaphoric correlates. The chapter finds that abstractness :: concreteness of the time domain matrix depends on the type of construal of the world in which it is schemed – scientific (philosophical) or poetic. An overall tendency towards increasing concreteness is identified. This research is based on a corpus of 15,000 collocations with the lexical unit time and its historical equivalents. These collocations are featured in British philosophical and poetic works from corresponding historical periods between the seventh and twentieth centuries.